I ran my first triathlon today! I ran the Mini MightyMan triathlon, a nice little event that Anthony suggested to me a few months ago. It was a perfect race for a first timer...nice and short, and well organized (though I don't really) have anything to compare against yet.
Pre-Race
I probably went to sleep a little too late, but got stuck flipping between a bunch of movie channels and didn't have the discipline to turn it off. Had trouble sleeping, and woke up a couple of times, probably because of pre-race jitters.
In any case, I had packed my duffle bag and put the bike next to the door, so hopefully I did not make too much noise leaving this morning. I had parked the car out front the night before, so it was pretty easy to throw everything in the back of the mini-van, go down to the corner Korean deli and pick up an egg and cheese sandwich on a bagel for Anthony, and a toasted bagel with peanut butter for me, and then head over to Anthony's to pick him up. After throwing his bike up on the roof, off we went to Nassau Aquatic Center, East Meadow, NY. It was a quick drive and we got there at 6:45am.
Check-in was pretty fast (despite all of the email warnings saying to show up by 6:30am at the latest to avoid lines). Picked up the packet, moved to the next table to pick up the timing chip, and then down to body marking.
Then it was out to the transition area to rack the bike and set up my transition area. Anthony had helped me practice transitions just last Friday, so I had everything set up pretty quickly and smoothly...until I realized that I couldn't find the timing chip. Rookie mistake. Lesson learned (which Anthony shared with me afterwards): Put the timing chip on as soon as you get it! I'm not sure exactly what happened, but after Anthony and I tore up my carefully laid out transition area, we found the chip lying on the group right next to my bag and mat.
I really wish I took more pictures today, but I was too jittery, and had
put my phone in my bag and transition, and then forgot about it.
After that, we headed to the pool stadium seating/bleachers to watch the youth race. It was really cute, and you could see that the kids were working really hard. Walking in, you could see kids racking their Huffy's and BMX's.
Don't know if it was pre-race jitters still, but I needed to
find a bathroom...and I guess it isn't uncommon since there was a wait
at every single bathroom I could find. Anyway, after taking care of business, it was time to do some warm-up laps. This was only really the 2nd time that I'd swam in a 50m pool, and I always forget how long it feels. I go out really strong and feel great, and then by the middle of the 2nd length I realize that it's really far. After swimming 200m, it was time to start lining up.
The swim portion of the tri was held in the Nassau Aquatic Center in their 50m pool. You basically start one at a time, "time trial" style, 5 seconds apart. You walk over the timing mat, jump (NOT dive) in to the pool, and start swimming. Along the pool, there were signs indicating pace (less than 5:45, 6, 6:30, 7, etc.) and everyone was supposed to self-seed. We were also told, and Anthony said that this was done in previous years, to self-seed within each little group by talking to the other people around you. I don't know if the other groups did that, but the group I was in (7:30), we didn't do that. I had swam a 7:39 at Asphalt Green last Thursday so I just stood towards the end of the group.
Race
Anyway, after the race director made a few announcements, explaining the swim, bike, and run courses, and another guy came on to tell everyone about the awards and raffles, we were off. I was standing on the deck furthest away from the pool, so didn't really see the first competitors to start, though I was able to see Anthony swim. The first guy was out of the water, and Anthony was too, before I even started. It was sort of non-eventful...I followed the people in front of me, a couple of staffers reminded everyone to jump in feet first, another person called out my number to someone else and told me to go...I walked across the timing mat, jumped in, pushed off the wall, and away I went.
Despite the warm-up, I still went out too strong, and felt gassed by the turn into the second length. I finally settled down into a more regular rhythm sometime during the third lap. I had one person pass me, but I ended up passing 4 or 5 people (maybe including the person behind me).
According to my watch, I did the swim in 7:52, which counting the couple of seconds walking over the mat, and the time it took me to climb out of the pool, was probably only a few seconds slower than my swim at AG. It was then 40-50 seconds running out of the pool area and outside to the transition area. According to the official race time, the swim leg (including the run to transition) took me 8:40.
T1 took me 1:30...I think I could have done it faster, but I guess it was okay for my first time. The biggest challenge was putting on socks on cold, wet feet. I wonder if it would have saved time if I dried them first. The other really big bummer was that in moving my Garmin from my wrist (for the swim) to the bike mount, I hit the lap button and started the bike leg while I was still in transition. I made it worse by hitting the lap button again (I don't know exactly what I was thinking), and putting the watching into T2 while I was still on the bike leg.
I put (or Anthony) put the race number on the bike a little weird...for whatever reason, only part of it was stuck together, and the rest of it was flapping open and scraping my legs, so I spent the first few minutes on the bike loop trying to peel off the adhesive backing, and sticking the rest of the race number together.
The bike course was three loops of a two mile course--basically an interior road in Eisenhower Park. Once I had fixed the sticker problem and tried to turn it on, I realized that I really didn't have as much as I though I would...the three loops around Central Park took more out of me than I expected and my legs were pretty tired. I ended up spinning a much lower gear than I had planned (I thought I would be in the highest gear since the course was so flat). Another lesson learned (though I've known this for awhile) is that my legs take a really long time to recover (more on this later, but that is why I call this blog/diary, "Glass Legs".)
I managed to get through the bike leg, getting only passed by a few guys on tri bikes, but passing a whole bunch of other people (though they were on more normal bikes, mountain bikes or beaters). I think the lesson learned there is not that I need to work out more, but I need a tri bike as well. I finished the bike leg in 16:07, which was roughly a 22 mph pace. I think I could have done better if I had not ridden yesterday, and not had the sticker mishap.
T2 took me 1:09 (which was 192 out of 376), so there is definitely room for improvement there.
The run leg consisted of two loops of a 1 mile course. Anthony had warned me that a fair amount of the course was on dirt and grass, and that it would be tougher, but I found that coming of the bike and running, especially on the dirt and grass was much harder than I thought. There were times during that first mile when I thought I was going definitely going to have to walk. I found that my sneakers were a bit loose since I did not tighten the speed laces enough, and I thought that I would just tighten my laces and use that as an excuse to walk a bit. I reconsidered when I thought about how disappointed in myself I would be if I had to walk, and how much crap I would get if Anthony happened to see me. I think the lesson learned here was that no matter how bad I felt, if I could push through it, I probably still had something left in the tank. So I'm glad I kept running, because sometime in the second loop, I settled down into a better rhythm. According to my watch (which I had already screwed up), I ran the run leg in 16:30 or so, but the official time had me at 15:59, or 8:00 min/mile, which is right around my 4M race pace. Considering that I thought that I was much slower, and running off the bike, and on grass and dirt, I was pretty happy.
So I finished in 43:23, which was good enough for 48th out of 376, and 6th in the 35-39 male age group. They posted the times pretty quickly, probably 30-40 minutes or so after I had finished the race. I was on the first page of finishers...probably safe to say that this will be the only time that will happen this year, but after finishing x thousandths out of y thousands, finishing in 48th was a nice surprise. On to the NYC Triathlon! {Update: Turns out that a couple of people ahead of me got DQ'ed for not doing two loops of the bike course, so I actually finished in 46th}.
Post Race - Feel pretty good, a little tired from not getting enough sleep last night. Left leg is hurting in the usual places, by the hip and above the knee.
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